The Copernican Question: Prognostication, Skepticism, and Celestial Order

Cover......Page 1
Title......Page 6
Copyright......Page 7
Contents......Page 10
List of Illustrations......Page 14
Preface and Acknowledgments......Page 18
The Historical Problematic......Page 22
Summary and Plan of This Work......Page 30
Categories of Description and Explanation......Page 38
I: Copernicus’s Space of Possibilities......Page 44
Printing, Planetary Theory, and the Genres of Forecast......Page 46
Copernicus’s Exceptionalism......Page 49
Practices of Classifying Heavenly Knowledge and Knowledge Makers......Page 50
The Science of the Stars......Page 55
The Career of the Theorica/Practica Distinction......Page 61
Theoretical Astrology: From the Arabic to the Reformed, Humanist Tetrabiblos......Page 64
The Order of the Planets and Copernicus’s Early Formation......Page 69
Copernicus’s Problematic: The Unresolved Issues......Page 76
The Annual Prognostication......Page 83
The Popular Verse Prophecies......Page 87
Sites of Prognostication......Page 91
The Bologna Period, 1496–1500: An Undisturbed View......Page 97
From the Krakow Collegium Maius to the Bologna Studium Generale......Page 98
Bologna and the “Horrible Wars of Italy”......Page 99
The Astrologers’ War......Page 103
Pico against the Astrologers......Page 105
Domenico Maria Novara and Copernicus in the Bologna Culture of Prognostication......Page 108
Prognosticators, Humanists, and the Sedici......Page 114
Copernicus, Assistant and Witness......Page 117
The Averroists and the Order of Mercury and Venus......Page 120
Copernicus’s Commentariolus or, Perhaps, the Theoric of Seven Postulates......Page 121
Copernicus, Pico, and De Revolutionibus......Page 124
II: Confessional and Interconfessional Spaces of Prophecy and Prognostication......Page 128
4. Between Wittenberg And Rome: The New System, Astrology, and the End of the World......Page 130
Melanchthon, Pico, and Naturalistic Divination......Page 131
Rheticus’s Narratio Prima in the Wittenberg-Nuremberg Cultural Orbit......Page 135
World-Historical Prophecy and Celestial Revolutions......Page 140
Celestial Order and Necessity......Page 142
Necessity in the Consequent......Page 143
The Astronomy without Equants......Page 147
Principles versus Tables without Demonstrations......Page 148
The Publication of De Revolutionibus: Osiander’s “Ad Lectorem”......Page 149
Holy Scripture and Celestial Order......Page 151
De Revolutionibus: Title and Prefatory Material......Page 154
The “Principal Consideration”......Page 160
5. The Wittenberg Interpretation of Copernicus’s Theory......Page 162
Melanchthon and the Science of the Stars at Wittenberg......Page 164
The Melanchthon Circle, Rheticus, and Albertine Patronage......Page 165
Rheticus, Melanchthon, and Copernicus: A Psychodynamic Hypothesis......Page 168
Erasmus Reinhold, Albrecht, and the Formation of the Wittenberg Interpretation......Page 171
The Prutenic Tables, Patronage, and the Organization of Heavenly Literature......Page 179
The Consolidation of the Wittenberg Interpretation......Page 181
The Advanced Curriculum at Wittenberg......Page 185
Germany as the “Nursery of Mathematics”......Page 189
Conclusion......Page 190
Marking the Dangers of Human Foreknowledge......Page 192
Becoming a Successful Prognosticator......Page 193
Multiplying Genitures......Page 195
From Wittenberg to Louvain: Astrological Credibility and the Copernican Question......Page 199
John Dee and Louvain: Toward an Optical Reformation of Astrology......Page 204
Jofrancus Offusius’s Semi-Ptolemaic Solution to the Variation in Astral Powers......Page 206
Skirting the Margins of Dangerous Divination......Page 211
De Revolutionibus at the Papal Court: A Stillborn (Negative) Reaction......Page 215
The Holy Index and the Science of the Stars......Page 218
Making Orthodoxy: Learned Advice from Trent......Page 220
Astrology, Astronomy, and the Certitude of Mathematics in Post-Tridentine Heavenly Science......Page 223
The Jesuits’ “Way of Proceeding”: The Teaching Ministry, the Middle Sciences, Astrology, and Celestial Order......Page 225
Clavius on the Order of the Planets......Page 230
Disciplinary Tensions......Page 234
Astronomy in a Hexameral Genre: Robert Bellarmine......Page 238
III: Accommodating Unanticipated, Singular Novelties......Page 242
Astronomical Reform and the Interpretation of Celestial Signs......Page 244
The New Piconians......Page 247
Mistrusting Numbers......Page 249
The Rise of the Theoretical Astronomer and the “Science” of the New Star of 1572......Page 251
The Generic Location of the New Star......Page 255
Court Spaces and Networks: Uraniborg, Hapsburg Vienna and Prague......Page 257
Hagecius’s Polemic on the New Star......Page 261
An Emergent Role for a Noble Astronomer: Tycho Brahe and the Copenhagen Oration......Page 264
Tycho and Pico, Generic and Named Adversaries......Page 266
The Tychonian Problematic, 1574......Page 268
A Tychonic Solution to Pico’s Criticism? Naibod’s Circumsolar Ordering of Mercury and Venus......Page 269
The Comet of 1577 and its Discursive Space......Page 271
Astrological and Eschatological Meanings of Comets......Page 273
The Language, Syntax, and Credibility of Cometary Observation......Page 274
Place and Order, the Comet and the Cosmos: Gemma, Roeslin, Maestlin, and Brahe......Page 275
Conclusion......Page 278
Michael Maestlin: Pastor, Academic, Mathematicus, Copernican......Page 280
Maestlin’s Hesitations about Astrology......Page 283
The Practice of Theorizing: Maestlin’s Glosses on Copernicus......Page 285
Thomas Digges: Gentleman, Mathematical Practitioner, Platonist, Copernican......Page 289
Digges on Copernicus in Wings or Ladders......Page 291
The Mathematicians’ Court......Page 293
Reorganizing Copernicus......Page 294
Thomas Digges’s Infinite Universe “Augmentation” in Leonard Digges’s Prognostication Euerlastinge......Page 296
The Plummet Passage......Page 299
Conclusion......Page 300
The Emergence of a Via Media......Page 302
Along the Via Media: Tycho’s Progress......Page 307
Negotiating the Spheres’ Ontology......Page 309
Rothmann’s Transformation and the First Copernican Controversy......Page 311
Giordano Bruno: “Accademico dinulla Accademia detto il Fastidito”......Page 321
Bruno’s Visual, Pythagorean Reading of Copernicus......Page 322
Bruno and the Science of the Stars......Page 326
IV: Securing the Divine Plan......Page 328
The Copernican Situation at the End of the 1580s......Page 330
Counterfactual Kepler......Page 332
Kepler’s Copernican Formation at Tübingen, 1590–1594......Page 335
Kepler’s Shift in the Astronomer’s Role......Page 337
Kepler’s Physical-Astrological Problematic and Pico......Page 341
Dating Kepler’s Encounter with Pico: A Tübingen Scenario?......Page 342
The Gold Nugget......Page 344
Prognosticating (and Theorizing) in Graz......Page 345
Kepler’s Copernican Cosmography and Prognostication......Page 346
The Divine Plan, Archetypal Causes, and the Beginning of the World......Page 349
From Kepler’s Polyhedral Hypothesis to the Logical and Astronomical Defense of Copernicus......Page 352
The Mysterium Cosmographicum: The Space of Reception......Page 357
The Tübingen Theologians and the Duke......Page 358
The German Academic Mathematicians: Limnaeus and Praetorius......Page 360
Kepler’s Mysterium and the Via Media Group......Page 362
V: Conflicted Modernizers at the Turn of the Century......Page 372
Galileo and the Science of the Stars in the Pisan Period......Page 374
Galileo and the Wittenberg and Uraniborg-Kassel Networks......Page 376
Galileo on Copernicus: The Exchange with Mazzoni......Page 377
Galileo and Kepler: The 1597 Exchange......Page 378
Galileo as a “Maestlinian”......Page 381
Paduan Sociabilities: The Pinelli Circle and the Edmund Bruce Episode, 1599–1605......Page 383
1600: Bruno’s Execution......Page 387
1600: William Gilbert’s Project for a Magnetical Philosophy......Page 389
The Quarrel among the Modernizers: New Convergences at the Fin de Siècle......Page 395
Galileo’s Silence about Bruno......Page 396
The Copernican Problematic and Astrological Theorizing after Bruno’s Trial......Page 397
Kepler’s Continuing Search for Astrology’s Foundations......Page 399
The Predicted Conjunction of the Three Superior Planets and the Unforeseen Nova of 1604......Page 403
Galileo and the Italian Nova Controversies......Page 405
Honor and Credibility in the Capra Controversy......Page 410
Galileo and Kepler’s Nova......Page 412
Celestial Natural Philosophy in a New Key: Kepler’s De Stella Nova and the Modernizers......Page 414
The Possibility of a Reformed Astrological Theoric: Kepler for and against Pico (Again)......Page 416
The Copernican Question in the Stella Nova: Kepler for Gilbert, against Tycho......Page 419
Making Room: Kepler between Wacker von Wackenfels and Tycho Brahe......Page 420
Generating the Nova: Divine Action and Material Necessity......Page 421
Summary and Conclusion......Page 422
Kepler’s Star over Germany and Italy......Page 424
Kepler’s English Campaign......Page 425
VI: The Modernizers, Recurrent Novelties, and Celestial Order......Page 438
The Emergent Problematic of the Via Moderna......Page 440
Many Roads for the Modernizers: The Social Disunity of Copernican Natural Philosophy......Page 444
Along the Via Moderna......Page 447
Conclusion......Page 454
Theoretical Knowledge and Scholarly Reputation......Page 455
Patron-Centered Heavenly Knowledge......Page 457
Patronage at the Periphery: Galileo and the Aristocratic Sphere of Learned Sociability......Page 461
Florentine Court Sociabilities......Page 463
Galileo’s Decision to Leave Padua for Florence......Page 468
Stabilizing the Telescopic Novelties......Page 469
Conclusion: Gentlemanly Truth Tellers?......Page 475
The Sidereus Nuncius, the Nova Controversies, and Galileo’s “Copernican Silence”......Page 476
Through a Macro Lens: The Reception of the Sidereus Nuncius and the Telescope, Mid-March to Early May 1610......Page 478
Kepler’s Philosophical Conversation with Galileo and His Book......Page 481
Galileo’s Negotiations with the Tuscan Court, May 1610......Page 486
Virtual Witnessing, Print, and the Great Resistance......Page 489
Magini’s Strategic Retreat and the 7/11 Problem......Page 497
Galileo and Kepler: The Denouement......Page 498
Galileo’s Novelties and the Jesuits......Page 502
Conclusion: The Great Controversy......Page 506
Astrological Prognostication and Astronomical Revolution......Page 507
Copernicans and Master-Disciple Relations......Page 508
Seventeenth-Century Thoughts about Belief Change......Page 509
The End of the Long Sixteenth Century......Page 510
The Era of Consolidation: World Systems and Comparative Probability......Page 513
From Philosophizing Astronomer-Astrologers to New-Style Natural Philosophers......Page 516
Weighing Probables: The Via Moderna versus the Via Media at Midcentury......Page 520
The Copernican Question after Midcentury......Page 522
Robert Hooke, Isaac Newton, and the Crucial Experiment......Page 525
The Copernican Question: Closure and Proof......Page 531
Notes......Page 536
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